Whenever I see stuff like this I make this face. But I do think the writer -- Max Parker, “The Game Guy” of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Community Voices section* -- is, in fact, serious:
That’s Roberto Clemente’s number, of course, which the Pirates have retired. And while the “refund for damages” comment is probably hyperbole, the writer does seem to be serious in asking that MLB 2K11 remove the ability for users to play with retired numbers on their players.
Which is crazy talk, of course. The point of retiring a number is so that Lastings Milledge or someone doesn’t wear it out on the field in front of Pirates fans and God and everyone. It’s not to keep me from being able to pretend that the character I created on a video game is the illegitimate grandson of Clemente, discovered playing ball on the streets of Carolina, Puerto Rico and secretly groomed in a private training facility in the mountains of western Pennsylvania, only to be revealed to the world during a fictitious Game 7 of the World Series where he hits the winning pinch hit home run off the illegitimate grandson of Whitey Ford, who happens to be wearing #16 for the Yankees.
You know, just by way of, um, example.
*An earlier version of this post omitted Mr. Parker’s name. Mr. Parker took issue with this on Twitter, complaining that I violated “Journalism 101" by not giving him proper credit. Apologies to Mr. Parker. In my defense -- which I realize is not sufficient -- I was merely following Courtesy 101, which would have me not call out people by name when they’re making a really ridiculous point. But seeing as though Max Parker would like everyone to know that he’s genuinely upset that video game characters are allowed to wear retired numbers, I hereby make the correction. Let no one say that Max Parker abides the notion of pretend baseball players wearing retired numbers. And let no one say that I don’t abide the concepts of “Journalism 101.”
